Global education has become a requirement, not a luxury. Technology integration into a curriculum has become a must. The Internet has become the transmission medium. Connectivity has become the goal. The proliferation of personal computers has permitted virtually every classroom to have the capability to be “wired” and on-line. There is the realization that Internet connectivity can enhance the economic advancement of students and communities and provide a level of information on a broad scale hitherto unknown. In can permit the current generation to leap frog into this century. The failure to provide such connectivity can further exacerbate the split between the haves and the have-nots.
Along with global information access has come the realization that a level of monitoring and control must be exercised in order to keep the information highway from becoming an open sewer. Regular e-mail and open access chat rooms are generally not secure. Although there are some screening tools and blockages that can be employed, as a general matter, the flow of information cannot be adequately controlled in an open environment.
Through community based filtered and monitored systems, such as is described in a Provisional patent application Ser. No. 10/619,259, teachers can set up accounts for themselves and for their classes in order to provide “shared learning” through collaboration. However, this limits the collaborative environment to those who are willing to use the Internet and become part of a community. Moreover, to the extent that there is any financial burden or cost involved with the account, teachers may be reluctant to bear that obligation personally, inasmuch as it is being used for their professional activities. Similarly, establishing such an account may or may not be consistent with the curriculum plans for a particular school or for the particular school system. Classrooms in a wealthier areas may all be interconnected, while those in less affluent parts of a community may not, thus relying on those teachers to bear any economic cost of setting up and maintaining the account, along with the computer necessary to access it.
Provisional patent application Ser. No. 10/619,097 describes a method and system for multi-level monitoring and filtering of data transmissions (Schoolmail) that permits the creation within a school district or school system of a secure “virtual district” with “virtual classrooms”, “virtual meeting halls”, “virtual teacher conferences” and multiple accounts to permit a hierarchical infrastructure with varying privileges associated with each user name or category. The system provides a universal solution to allowing information flow to both students and educators, while maintaining control of the type and character of material received by students. It also permits internal community or group generation to permit dissemination of information to different levels of educators or administrators on a needs basis. The system can employ common server capability to permit multiple districts to have their individual SchoolMail, while at the same time providing the capability of interaction and connectivity among the districts, based upon screening and search criteria. It can also control the desktop of the personal computers that are on the SchoolMail system to prevent students from getting off and onto an open and uncontrolled system.
Although school systems are coming to the realization that they must provide uniform access to all teachers and administrators within a system, and the capability to communicate with other systems, the cost of setting up the necessary servers, personal computers and information infrastructure can be prohibitive. Maintaining the system can require substantial numbers of dedicated personnel and rapid advances in technology can make a system obsolete before it is even paid for.
Educators are also finding that without the participation of parents in the educational process, teaching is hampered and less effective. Parental involvement is critical on several levels. An involved parent is more likely to push their child to learn and go beyond the minimum requirements of a class session. An involved parent is also more likely to pay for the cost of the added benefit of technological integration into the classroom. However, parental involvement in education an also be seen by administrators and educators as another level of “bureaucracy” to which they have to answer, and which may sometimes become involved in petty matters. There is a need to enhance the educational experience by providing the interactive, connective technological tools for collaborative learning and involving those who ultimately are paying for the tools while, at the same time, preventing the parents from “micro-managing” their child's education or using the information highway to inundate teachers and administrators.
Repeat use of reference characters in the present specification and drawings is intended to represent same or analogous features or elements of the invention.